really?

Summer school has consumed my energy these past two weeks, but I wanted to comment on a couple of strange items in the week’s news.

1. Anthony Weiner apologized to Bill Clinton?! Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

2. Clinton’s people say that the former president is genuinely miffed at Weiner, because Weiner’s wife is like a second daughter to him. Does President Clinton understand that Monica Lewinsky also has a father? Did he apologize profusely to him?

3. It’s now official. Our culture is no longer able to experience shame. How can Anthony Weiner show his face in public, let alone insist that he should keep his job? His lack of shame means that he really doesn’t appreciate his guilt, which means that he really doesn’t appreciate his sin. Perhaps this is why the gospel—God’s solution to our sin, guilt, and shame—is not popular in America. If our culture no longer understands shame, or why it is sometimes the only appropriate emotion, then we have our work cut out for us.

4. Why is the media going gaga over Sarah Palin’s emails? She hasn’t declared that she is a candidate for office, and it looks like she has no plans on doing so. Isn’t the media feeding the very publicity grab that they will then accuse her of seeking?

5. How can the self-proclaimed basketball messiah (“We are Witnesses”) disappear when his team needs him the most? Just when I begin to feel bad for LeBron, I remember that he has made millions from people on the promise that he will bring them a championship.

6. LeBron’s collapse teaches that winning may not be the most important thing. Even if Miami rallies and wins the final two games, LeBron’s brand is significantly tarnished, perhaps irreparably so. I’m guessing that his brand would be doing better if he had stayed home and played for Cleveland. He still wouldn’t have won anything—it is Cleveland—but he would have remained a global icon.

7. You’ve probably heard this one, but a young Miami Heat fan asked LeBron after practice if he could borrow a dollar. LeBron fished in his pockets and handed the boy 75 cents. When the boy said he really needed a dollar, LeBron confessed that he didn’t have a fourth quarter.

8. It’s probably wrong for Cleveland fans to take schadenfreude from LeBron’s inexplicable collapse, but this is the closest we’ve ever come to winning anything. So please don’t take this away from us on the grounds that it’s somehow unchristian. We are nursing a sports grudge, which God treats differently from real ones. Anyway, since God has never let Cleveland have anything in my lifetime, expect the Heat to close this out at home.

Maybe we should stop making idols out of politicians and celebrities and start holding them accountable for their behavior, their votes, and so on. Merely laughing it off and calling it ‘eccentric’ excuses the ‘bad boys and girls’ rather than holding them to some sort of standard. We have to speak in words that will get through to THEIR idols – money and power.

Is it any wonder that our country is on a downward spiral? Next thing you know, the Lions will win the Super Bowl! No, wait, that would be a miracle.